He holds no gentle and recent memories of it the way Akira does, but he too remembers hiding from their supervisors in the wild shrubbery. He remembers too the smell of bay roses at the shore, how he'd carefully dissected a specimen for Akira to see without brushing his fingers against the sharp ends of thorns. But, still, there's something older than that, more painful. He doesn't know why, at the residual corners of his memory, it takes root. Like night blooming flowers, their pale faces tilted up to the moon, he doesn't know what it is about the smell of Earth that draws him to it. But in that same way, he supposes, wouldn't it then be natural that he was drawn too to the sun? The heat of Akira's palm spreads through his, makes him softer — more malleable. He watches for Akira's reaction, knows that the fainter smile he gives him is not what he'd hoped, but in some ways had hoped for as he Akira's fingers brush across the curve of his knuckles, tightens their grip.
He tells himself that he doesn't know what it is that illuminates him from the inside out as Akira does, a distorted reflection of what Akira gives him so readily.
There's a warmth at the corners of his mouth, at the soft round of his shoulders. As children, he'd resisted the initial pull toward the world. In the classrooms, in the games that they would play — he'd kept toward the edge. He'd found more interest in the books the adults would open, in the manipulation of toys beyond their intended purpose. And Akira, who cried for anyone, situated himself beside Ryo and never learned how to part. Ryo doesn't wonder what would happen if he did, because he knows no other world without Akira in it. He knows, in the deepest parts of him, there would be nothing left of him.
Still, he doesn't smile, but he needn't have to. His eyes are bright, no matter the weight of the fatigue that sprawls between them both — a thick and heavy sediment. In its settling, it stirs up what's beneath more than Ryo cares to touch on. His heart hums, certain but unsteady, assuaged and aggravated both by the way Akira doesn't let him go. It shouldn't be anything new (and it isn't), but Ryo reasons the potency of his reactions are in part colored by the environment, the nutrition they're forced to take in. He reasons it could be any number of things, as Akira weaves with him through the full and verdant rows. He reasons, when Akira remarks on the growth and his wishes, that his tongue trips because he'd been focused on which plants Akira lingered over longest. ]
We could ask Okumura-san, [ he says, after a long moment. The pad of his thumb, calloused as it, strokes over the broader edge of Akira's own. It's a reciprocal action, as his eyes flicker over to seek out Akira's. It's almost automatic. It's where his attention had always settled, in the end. ] The first hydroponics garden was her idea. [ He remembers when she'd first started. He'd visited her then, given her clearer ideas on what they could do to assure solid growth. And he'd visited at least once a day since then, no matter the discovery of the larger room. Her own had been more established, he reasoned. It was best to see what could be derived and transplanted from them. ] I'm sure she'd like to see that too.
[ He needn't vocalize that he suggests it for Akira's sake, but in many way he does. Already, his gears are turning even despite his lack of energy. He thinks of what they have in storage, what is already growing. He wonders which ones would most resemble the paths they'd tread at home. ]
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He holds no gentle and recent memories of it the way Akira does, but he too remembers hiding from their supervisors in the wild shrubbery. He remembers too the smell of bay roses at the shore, how he'd carefully dissected a specimen for Akira to see without brushing his fingers against the sharp ends of thorns. But, still, there's something older than that, more painful. He doesn't know why, at the residual corners of his memory, it takes root. Like night blooming flowers, their pale faces tilted up to the moon, he doesn't know what it is about the smell of Earth that draws him to it. But in that same way, he supposes, wouldn't it then be natural that he was drawn too to the sun? The heat of Akira's palm spreads through his, makes him softer — more malleable. He watches for Akira's reaction, knows that the fainter smile he gives him is not what he'd hoped, but in some ways had hoped for as he Akira's fingers brush across the curve of his knuckles, tightens their grip.
He tells himself that he doesn't know what it is that illuminates him from the inside out as Akira does, a distorted reflection of what Akira gives him so readily.
There's a warmth at the corners of his mouth, at the soft round of his shoulders. As children, he'd resisted the initial pull toward the world. In the classrooms, in the games that they would play — he'd kept toward the edge. He'd found more interest in the books the adults would open, in the manipulation of toys beyond their intended purpose. And Akira, who cried for anyone, situated himself beside Ryo and never learned how to part. Ryo doesn't wonder what would happen if he did, because he knows no other world without Akira in it. He knows, in the deepest parts of him, there would be nothing left of him.
Still, he doesn't smile, but he needn't have to. His eyes are bright, no matter the weight of the fatigue that sprawls between them both — a thick and heavy sediment. In its settling, it stirs up what's beneath more than Ryo cares to touch on. His heart hums, certain but unsteady, assuaged and aggravated both by the way Akira doesn't let him go. It shouldn't be anything new (and it isn't), but Ryo reasons the potency of his reactions are in part colored by the environment, the nutrition they're forced to take in. He reasons it could be any number of things, as Akira weaves with him through the full and verdant rows. He reasons, when Akira remarks on the growth and his wishes, that his tongue trips because he'd been focused on which plants Akira lingered over longest. ]
We could ask Okumura-san, [ he says, after a long moment. The pad of his thumb, calloused as it, strokes over the broader edge of Akira's own. It's a reciprocal action, as his eyes flicker over to seek out Akira's. It's almost automatic. It's where his attention had always settled, in the end. ] The first hydroponics garden was her idea. [ He remembers when she'd first started. He'd visited her then, given her clearer ideas on what they could do to assure solid growth. And he'd visited at least once a day since then, no matter the discovery of the larger room. Her own had been more established, he reasoned. It was best to see what could be derived and transplanted from them. ] I'm sure she'd like to see that too.
[ He needn't vocalize that he suggests it for Akira's sake, but in many way he does. Already, his gears are turning even despite his lack of energy. He thinks of what they have in storage, what is already growing. He wonders which ones would most resemble the paths they'd tread at home. ]